


Smoke and Mirrors

by Softiecat_Cupcake



Category: BLACKPINK (Band)
Genre: Dark, Drinking, F/F, References to Drugs, singer!Jennie, writer!Lisa
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:35:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21625411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Softiecat_Cupcake/pseuds/Softiecat_Cupcake
Summary: How does one deal with fading inspiration? With writer's block? How does one deal with everything in between? How does one deal exactly?When inspiration comes in the form of a singer through the haze of drug-tainted euphoria and drunken bliss.
Relationships: Jennie Kim/Lalisa Manoban | Lisa
Comments: 1
Kudos: 28





	1. Through the Haze

* * *

_How does one write without words? Words that fill pages upon pages emptily? How does one create a story with the sound of words, the feeling of words, nothing but the shadows of words? How does one write... how does... how does, how does anyone write about the black monsters kept hidden within one’s mind? Waiting… waiting for that brief crack in the walls where they find themselves spilling. Spilling out like water from a cracked cup?_

Lisa looked at the words she’d written in a frenzy on the only table napkin she could find, wrinkled around the edges, ink dripping, handwriting sloppy, creating little splats of black that made up a sad picture along with her words, much like the thoughts tumbling through her mind. 

_How does one get rid of the voices? Better yet, how does one become one with the voices? The thoughts, neverending thoughts streaming through like music from one’s own consciousness. How does one move past the feeling, the desire, the longing for inspiration?_

She stares at the smoke that spreads out from her mouth to the empty space around her, the smoke from the joint in her hand. Eyes it curiously and wonders how light it must be to float through like smoke, past consciousness, past everything. Lisa takes another drag and feels the lightness settle in her bones. Soon she’ll feel like smoke and soon she’ll see past the darkness, past the desperation, soon she’ll see physical manifestations of inspiration and she’ll pick up the pen and write. For now… For now she closes her eyes and flies. 

_“Lisa. I need the first draft by next month.”_

_“I’m working on it, Art.”_

_“You’ve been working on it for five months, and you’ve given me nothing but ideas. I need something concrete, something to publish. Your last novel didn’t sell as much.”_

_Lisa runs her shaky hand through her hair and takes a deep drag from the cigarette, enough to stop the shaking and the worrying and the stream of restless thoughts._

_“Just buy me more time. I’ll have that book ready.”_

_“For Christ's sake, you better. Fuck, look I know … hell, even God knows you’re going through something right now but you’re broke. You’re broke and we both know it and this, this is something that could save you. So get your shit together. Three months Lisa, that’s the most I could do.”_

_She lets the silence answer him, and she hears him sigh. They always do, nowadays. Sigh._

_“Lisa… please, for crying out loud. Fix this.”_

_The line cuts and she laughs as she blows out the smoke she kept inside her and watches as it spreads out through the air, much like her. Spreads out, slowly disappearing into what she knows is nothing._

Lisa sees black cloud her vision, hears the sound of the piano increase in pitch and she winces at the intensity of how each note that vibrates in the air seems to rattle every bone in her body, making her shiver. _Was it really the music, though?_ The soft adagio lulls her, wraps around her and she hears her. Through the shouts of drunken men and through the hazy, foggy blur that follows her. She sees her, like water, much like water at night and hears her. Nothing else but her. 

“Thank you for coming, here’s a little something I cooked up for you guys.”

Lisa sees the smile and sees her fingers fleeting through the keys and her voice that is breaking through the haze in her head now. 

She looks around and feels offended at the lack of interest. What does she expect from people who have the least bit of understanding for Art? For beauty. Drunken men were cheering, not for the beauty they saw within the notes and her voice. But for her. Physically. Lisa sees them run their eyes all over her body, and she almost tears the paper napkin in her hands. 

“Bastards.” 

She mutters under her breath and stands, shakily, towards the front where the lights were too much and hurt her eyes, and where the noise was too much for her ears. She walks, tries her best not to stagger but stumbles into a chair instead. 

“Fuck.”

“Look at where you’re going, missy.”

A gruff voice was worming its way into her fogged up mind, but she couldn’t care less. She was called out to, enticed, hypnotized... _wait.. What was this woman doing to her?_

She half drags her right leg, _it has fallen limp and quite dead, you see…_ from all that sitting and all that thinking and all that wondering where her fucking inspiration was. Not that we’d care at all about that, but you see... it gives us a clearer picture… _doesn’t it?_

She drags it around for what she thinks were long distances, but it was merely a couple of feet away from where she was writing her so-called thoughts, just thoughts… never ideas, because if they were, she’d have a book by now. 

Lisa laughs out loud, not really meaning to but when you’re stoned and tipsy and have shitty career and financial problems, every little damn thing that comes to mind is suddenly funny. _Pitiful? She thinks it’s cute._ She laughs and she laughs and finds it accentuating the music quite lovely, however, this time it wasn’t so slow...everything was in fast forward, the singer’s voice, her hands, the piano, the drunken cheers, even her own goddamn laughter. _Why the fuck was this happening?_

She finds her hands on the edges of the makeshift stage and she looks up at her, at her flowing hair and her flowy voice and her fleeting fingers on her shiny piano, and Lisa feels a stupid grin starting to form on her face.

_Aoede, Aoede_

_Dulcet notes flow from thee,_

_Spare tis foolhardy poet_

_From these acts of ...travesty,_

Lisa blinks once, and then twice… Ahh poetry? From her languid, haze-filled mind? How unbelievable.. She hears the song drape over her, feels it caress her skin like velvet satin and with the fading notes she closes her eyes and begins to sway. Slowly ...back and forth, back and forth. 

“All right folks, it’s been an awesome night.”

Lisa hears the hiccups, subtle… very subtle. If she wasn’t so high and her senses so attuned, she wouldn’t have noticed, not even when she’s this close to her.

“Brava! Brava!”

Lisa looks through half-closed eyes, sees her clearly, the rest a blur. Sees her brown harsh eyes glint beneath the glare of the lights just above them, or was that… the sun? 

“Magnifique. An astounding performance.” Lisa gives her short-clipped claps, and hopes she wasn’t slurring her words, how unbecoming of a writer that would be. 

The woman looks at her with a curious expression, and Lisa laughs, _how incredibly funny._

She feels the sting not long after she hears the contact of the woman’s cold palm on her raw, throbbing cheek. 

“Come here to spite me I see, and with such flavorful words.” 

Lisa finds the bite of the words to hurt more than the slap. 

“Oh no.. no… you’re mistaken.”

“Compliments are given with a smile, not with a maniacal laughter.” 

She leers, far too close for Lisa’s taste, making her stumble back.

“Huh… drunk and rude. What a lovely combination.”

She turns on her delicate heels and all Lisa sees is the certain way her back dipped, and she licks her lips. _Why was she so thirsty?_

“Miss, please....” Lisa holds on to her wrist and pleads. _For what?_ “I can… I can… explain. You see, rudeness and alcohol go so well together, don’t they? But listen…” Lisa lets out a small giggle, “I think… alcohol was made for weed.”

The woman cocked her eyebrow, and Lisa sees a ghost of a smile gracing the corners of her lips. 

“I won’t tell your secret to anyone if you promise not to tell them mine?” She was kneeling on the stage, her forehead inches from Lisa’s. Her coral blue dress pooled beneath her knees, around her dainty legs, and Lisa smells the evidence, the one privy to her secrets and her subtle hiccups.

“Drinking at work?”

“It makes the singing more … bearable.”

“Ahhh, a like-minded soul…” 

_She_ sees her smile, and Lisa feels the world around her spinning, and she giggles from the thought. _A smile? A smile, beautiful enough to push her center off kilter and she spins and she spins, black pooling the corners of her eyes and her hearing dulling. She spins on an imaginary axis, the pretty lady in coral blue reaching out to her.. So…. So blurry.... She feels soft, red, smoke, red, cold and black… black pooling until she sees nothing. Feels nothing._

* * *

Lisa sees orange and green, little shapeless figures floating against black. She tries to open her eyes and finds it hard to do so. She tries moving her fingers and feels woven fabric, warm, brush against her skin and she tries again. She sees blurry fuzzy red and inhales the scent of old musty clothes hidden, tucked away in the attic for god knows how long. 

Everything looks like a washed out painting, Lisa blinks to try and get a sense of where, why and how she got there. 

“Ah, sleepyhead. Finally awake!” 

Lisa shoots up at the sound and feels the headache pound against her temple and she feels like crying. _Not the smartest of choices and here she was already thinking of running away so soon._

“Where the fuck am I?” her throat burns…

“My apartment, well… not apartment per se. More like… more like a room, rent-free as long as I sing to tasteless people every night. You see, Ms. I-fell-face-first-on-the-floor, not everyone’s born with a silver spoon right? Mine’s like...not born with even as much as a plastic spoon to begin with, or I’d like to think of it that way…”

Lisa sits up, and runs circles on her temples. Trying desperately to remember what happened, she finds herself looking at the woman sitting by the side of the bed, covers strewn carelessly into a heap behind her and the lights closest to her were dimmed. 

“Why am I here?”

“Oh.. you don’t remember?” 

Lisa looks up to where she is and finds it ironic how the lights were kissing her, making her glow… a halo… an angel… She licks her lips and tries to mentally kick her brain for anything. 

“Why… am I on your floor? Shouldn’t I be back in that pu--”

“You weigh more than you look, I have more… important things to do in life than carry you around like a … like a….”

“More important things… like drinking?” Lisa spits out the words, taking note of the empty bottles littered by the bed, catching the light and casting little rainbows. 

“Yes.. drinking.” 

“Unbelievable…”

“You said the same thing when you were kissing me last night.”

She said it so matter of factly Lisa almost choked on her saliva.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You’re so… well spoken, I must admit I loved how you threw all those poems every once and a while before--”

The headache was getting worse and Lisa was tempted to pound it against the walls. _Would probably hurt less…_ She rubs more forcefully, drowning out the singer’s words and she begins to remember flashes.

_“Aoede…”_

_“Aoede?”_

_Lisa traces an invisible line on her neck with her own lips and tongue._

“Say, we don’t even know each other’s name..” 

Lisa looks towards her and sees her smile, slyly and sees more than just charm and innocent antics. She sees sadness pooling beneath the brown eyes.

“Jennie… Jennie Kim. Professional pub singer. How… what word did you use? How utterly sad.” 

_Lisa pulls away and admires her, beneath the orange hue of the lights in the hallway. She was pushed against the walls, under Lisa’s own weight, and Lisa sees every dip and every nuance of her delicate face. Sees the way her lips curled into a seductive smile and sees brown turn to honey beneath the orange hue. Warm, rich honey._

_“Venus, professed from Heaven, thou wouldst use honey liquored eyes to entrap me in thy spell… how utterly unfair.”_

_“Sexy… call me that again.”_

_“Venus… Aoede… “_

_Lisa closes the gap and kisses her, long and sloppily. Thirstily… Lisa drinks from the beauty… parched she is._

_She pulls away and looks again… for what she feels was an eternity. Getting lost in the swirls of orange brown of her eyes, the smirk she had… the soft pool of hair she had her left hand buried into._

_“Are you going to stand and stare at me all day?”_

_“I’m admiring.”_

_“Oh, how… weirdly creepy.”_

_“It’s …” Lisa leans in and runs the tips of her nose against her cheeks and allows her breath to tease, allows it to kiss her hot skin just enough to see her hitch her breath, “incredibly romantic.”_

Lisa can’t remember anything further, she stands up slowly… shakily, trying to regain her balance, careful not to trip and fall on her face yet again. 

“Lisa...Manoban, broke ass writer.” She gives Jennie a dead stare and a smile, 

“Like-minded souls indeed. Say, will you be visiting again tonight?” 

“I ...might.” 

“Is that a no?”

“No.”

“Then a yes?”

“A maybe, dear singer, a maybe…” 

“I have… a new song I’d wish to perform and would like to know… what you think.” 

“If you put it that way, how can I decline such a generous offer?”

“Maybe then… the song will cut through the haze of memories and help you remember…”

She gives her a playful smile and Lisa laughs, laughs for the first time in months. 

“Maybe, or you could tell me.”

“Oh, dear writer, where would be the fun in that?” 

* * *

  
  
  
  



	2. Through Drunken Trysts

She feels the grip, how lovely, how… how timely, she thinks? She feels the grip and she holds on to the collar of her shirt, balling the thick fabric until her knuckles turn white and it burns against the skin of her palm. 

She looks around and everything is white, she closes her eyes and sees nothing but _white_ . Jennie leans back, eyes closed as the throbbing pain in her head intensifies with each heartbeat. She takes a gulp of air to try and make the pounding stop, _but wouldn’t that mean the heartbeats would stop too, or no?_ She doesn’t know, doesn’t really care, to be honest.

_One...two… three…_

This was choking her, it always did… She should’ve been smarter about it. _Why was she so stupid?_ She knows it comes and it goes and that it happens when she least expects it, so shouldn’t she be prepared? In some way, or in any way… 

She goes back to counting. Counting each breath and each heartbeat… Counts, to keep her mind off the feel of the wind on her skin, it was cold, and made her skin all prickly. Feels it like a soft caress, a ghost of a touch that crawled on her skin, like water. She shivers, and rubs her hands across her bare arms. Up and down until they warm up, but never warm enough to take the chills that run through her veins and inside her bones. She digs into the contents of her bag and pulls up a pen and a random piece of paper.

**_Between warm and cold sheets,_ **

**_It runs through like water._ **

**_From the backs of my mind to the tips of my hands._ **

**_Again and again. It repeats._ **

**_One, two, three and four and five._ **

**_Does it stop? Will it ever?_ **

**_If I breathe… will it leave?_ **

**_Between warm and… cold sheets_ **

**_Lie lies and ugly truths_ **

**_Every night… every night_ **

**_I breathe, until…_ **

**_Until it gets bearable._ **

Jennie looked at her pretty handwriting, _it was really… you know… pretty._ One of the pretty things she liked about herself if she was being honest. She was. Most of the time. Okay, maybe … just sometimes. But she was still, truthful to a fault and it comes out when she's … she's feeling not-so-better. Like today, this morning. It comes out, and it spills and when it does she craves for a drink. Anything to numb the mind and stop the roll of truths inside her stupid head. Stop the roll of ugly confessions on an equally lonely and pretty park bench. 

She eventually gets bored of the uselessness of it, crumples it in her palm, and feels the paper crease against her clammy skin. _Might’ve even stained it with it._ She plays with it in her hands, like a ball. A lumpy, and ugly paper ball she threw into the air, watches it as it spins for a bit before it falls down and she catches it. She does it again and again and again; it was oddly satisfying and calming. 

She catches it for the ninth time and stares at the weird way it folds inwards, all crumply, all wrinkly, and ugly. _Ugly and… warped._

_Stupid, why did she think this was a good idea? This is vulnerability she can't afford._

She needs a fucking drink, to calm the frayed nerves and to stop the flow of stupid shitty images. She crumples the paper further into a tighter ball and fits it in between the spaces of the metal bench.

“So much for a peaceful morning…” she mumbles under her breath.

Jennie gets up and leaves immediately, not wanting to stay any second longer. Not now and not today.

* * *

  
  


She drags her feet along the wooden stage floor, loud heavy thumps with each step. She puts on a smile she hoped was inviting enough for the crowd of drunk men, not that it mattered really, she knew she looked pretty enough. Everyone does, in a way... to someone who’s drunk. 

She hiccups and she runs her tongue across her bottom lip and tastes the remainder of the brandy, she has had a bottle and her steps were beginning to cross with each other. _That’s fine, she can work with that. This is how models walk across runways, right?_ She staggers for a bit, before gracefully covering the misstep with a hand on top of the old piano, that sometimes sounded a bit off-key, but who would notice? When everyone was looking at her, and wanted a piece of her? 

“Thank you for coming, here’s a little something I cooked up for you guys.”

She slurs the words at the end, and clicks her tongue inside her mouth making a popping sound that got drowned in the noise. 

_God, I hate this._

She begins to sing, and play at the same time. If they were sober enough they’d realize she’s been playing the same old shitty song every night. Her hands flit through the piano keys like clockwork and she glances at the crowd that cheers. 

“All right folks, it’s been an awesome night.”

She hiccups again, subtly, craving for something warm to chase it with. She thinks of getting another bottle of brandy, and have that added to her ever-growing tab at the bar. 

“Magnifique. An astounding performance.” 

The short-clipped claps made her wince, the sudden shrill sound of her palms smacking against each other was making Jennie’s head ache. Jennie looked at her with what she hoped was a hard set expression, something to ward her off and let Jennie be at peace with whatever demons she had in her own jumbled-up mind. She was leaning against the stage and had a huge grin on her face, she squinted, leaned back and gave off a fit of laughter. 

Jennie’s anger flares up, like a sudden wave, she feels the heat creep up to her cheeks and sees her hand fly, against the air. Jennie sees the slap sting and sees the strange woman smile, despite the possible pain. _How weird…_

She smells the familiar scent of alcohol off of her and sees her stumble backwards and Jennie hides a smile… Jennie feels the warmth of her hands around her own wrist, hears most of what she’s blabbering about … alcohol and weed, and sees the same innocent, unguarded smile on her face.

“I won’t tell your secret to anyone if you promise not to tell them mine?” Jennie whispers back, not really knowing why. 

Jennie falls to her knees on the stage floor and scoots closer, just a bit. Just a bit for her to try and look into the stranger’s eyes. A habit, when she wanted to read into other people’s intention, and a habit that was getting harder and harder to break. She sees nothing, nothing but a weird sense of drunken admiration that swirled like water down the drain, except hers was brown and dark, not blue... When Jennie’s tipsy, she tends to be… what’s the word? Honest? Unfiltered? Careless words spill out before she even has the chance to think about them. They flow and flow and Jennie smiles at her own stupidity, she knows the other woman won’t remember half of what might happen and she’s counting on that. 

“Ahhh, a like-minded soul…” 

Jennie smiles at the comment. _How fucking amusing…_

She staggers a bit and Jennie holds her hand out to try and hold on to her but laughs instead as she falls face flat on the floor. 

“How… amusing indeed” Jennie chuckles, and feels lightheaded all of a sudden too.

She jumps off the stage and kneels beside her. She was… smiling, _she’s not just amusing, she’s fucking crazy, too._ Jennie pokes into her cheeks and smiles in return, there was something about the absurdity and the goofiness of the situation she found herself in that was rather funny. _She hasn’t had this much fun since what? Two days ago?_

Jennie heaved her up, she weighed more than she looked, and Jennie feels the world swirl around them too. She knows she's had too much to drink, but does she care about it? Moderation was, Jennie giggles, far removed from her vocabulary when she drank.

“Aoede.” 

Jennie almost jumps in surprise.

“Fuck!” 

“You have such… a… lovely…”

_Face? Body? She’s heard the same thing over and over again._

“Voice…”

Jennie laughs. “Oh, do I?” 

She nods along with a funny grin on her face.

“Uhuh… It calls out to the soul.”

“Shhhh…” Jennie moves closer, kissing her to keep her quiet, tasting the cheap whiskey she had all night.

“Mmmm, taste just as sweet.”

“Really now? Tell me more.” 

“You taste like Ambrosia, if it had a taste… or if I… knew the taste to begin with.”

Jennie staggered to the side from her weight and her exaggerated hand movements. 

“Why? Does it not taste like anything?” 

“I wouldn’t know. I’m no goddess, if you’d let me I’d find out.”

Jennie laughed as they bumped into the walls of the narrow hallway, the lights overhead flickering and the thin walls shaking. 

“That was uh… that’s the weirdest pick-up line I’ve ever heard in my life.” Jennie can’t help but let out a giggle, all that shaking was making her head throb.

“It’s the truth, milady.” Her eyelids fluttered and another goofy grin graced her face, Jennie can’t decide if she looked stupid or funny, or better yet… both.

“Oh, surely you lie? I’m no goddess.” she faked a scoff, but knew the stranger couldn't tell which was real and which was not, Jennie thinks she couldn't even tell which was left and which was right. 

“Ah, Aoede then?”

They stagger and Jennie finds herself against the wall and against her warmth, pinned between both.

“Aoede?” 

“A muse… for the Gods, the muse of voice and song…”

She leans in and Jennie allows her, feels her whiskey stained breath caress her lips before she leans in too, meeting in between for a quick kiss.

Jennie feels the words flow through her, she knew they meant nothing. They always did. 

She draws a line on the stranger’s cheek with her unsteady fingers and she tilts her head to the side, keeping her neck vulnerable as the other woman leans closer and runs her tongue across it. Drawing senseless shapes and sucking on her skin. Her breath hitches, quick and deep, the air keeping her steady as she tries to close her eyes and focus on the shapes instead. Focus on nothing but the shapes, focus on how warm it felt… warm yet cool at the same time. She stiffens and tries to breathe again, tries to breathe through her mouth. 

“Lovely, so so lovely.” 

Jennie feels the warm whispers and tries to settle the quivers in her chest. 

The other woman pulls away and Jennie finds her looking into her eyes, with… something that falls between warmth and curiosity. She looks long and hard and Jennie finds herself looking away, a little taken aback from the intensity of her gaze. Something that felt foreign, like a speck of dust that falls on the surface of water… Felt like it doesn’t even belonged there, but something inevitable, she thinks. 

“Venus, professed from Heaven, thou wouldst use honey liquored eyes to entrap me in thy spell… how utterly unfair.” 

“Sexy... Call me that again.”

Jennie looks back and sees the thirst in her eyes, hidden behind her soft smile. 

_Ahhh there it is… what everyone wants.._

“Venus… Aoede.” 

The woman leans in and kisses her sloppily. She stays a bit longer, before pulling away and stares at her again, this time without the thirst. 

“Are you going to stand and stare at me all day?”

“I’m admiring.”

“Oh, how… weirdly creepy.”

“It’s…” The other woman leans in and runs the tips of her nose against Jennie’s cheeks and allows her breath to tease, allows it to kiss Jennie’s hot skin just enough to make Jennie hitch her breath, and to allow the subtle shudder to run through her hot body. “...incredibly romantic.” 

That was all it took for Jennie to push her off and drag her to her room, the one down the hall where the lights were always kept off and where the door squeaked on its hinges. To her room, where she kicks the door open, almost breaking it and pushes the stranger against its frame. Anything to stop the flow of words that were coming out of her mouth, making her feel more and more not in her skin. 

The thoughts were back, the ones from many years ago and she needed something warm, something hot to keep the cold away. Jennie kisses her hungrily, wanting, asking her silently to drive the cold and the stupid thoughts away. Jennie bites into her bottom lip making the stranger moan into the kiss and allowing her tongue entry, seeking her as she runs her hand inside the other woman’s shirt, hitching it upward, wanting it off, wanting to feel her warmth against Jennie’s own feverish skin. 

She pulls her closer, away from the door and towards her cold bed, almost stumbling over an empty bottle of vodka on the floor. The stranger staggers with her and holds onto her waist, pulling Jennie towards her. She keeps her in an awkward hug and Jennie feels her breath on her ear, it was weird, and it tickled and she wanted to pull away but the hold around her was strong and she felt the soft bites and it makes her stay. Makes her stand still against the awkward hold. 

“Beautiful…” her raspy voice made Jennie shiver, made her close her eyes shut.

_Beautiful… a word that feels more hollow than it does coming from a stanger's lips._

She pulls away and tries to hitch the stranger’s shirt off, running her fingers across her back and allowing her nails to dig into the tender flesh and creating little crescent moons, painting her back with a whole universe of them and allowing her ears to be filled with her heavy breathing and low moans. 

Jennie takes another deep breath and allows the stranger to do the same. Jennie starts to feel the drips in her center begin to collectively settle and fill her inside with a warmth that craved something more than just teasing touches and quick, sloppy kisses. She begins to feel the coldness falling away, replaced with a certain kind of warmth that was begging to be released. 

She pushes the stranger onto the carpet, and falls on top of her. 

_Warmth, she craves warmth._

_She craves it now._

She takes her own shirt off and gives the stranger a deep kiss…

_She needs warmth tonight, she lies to herself -- just like she always does._

* * *

She stared at the stranger, sleeping on her carpet, bathed in dim lights that filtered through the old lightbulbs above her bed. Bathing the stranger with enough light that allowed Jennie to see the rise and fall of her chest. 

Jennie runs her thumb across her own bottom lip, making it run back and forth on against the supple flesh. Allows it to comfort the throbs from the bites. She runs her right hand across her left shoulder, rubbing it softly. The cold was creeping back, and the longing for warmth was becoming addicting.

_It has always been an addiction though?_

She sees the stranger stir and puts on her smirk. 

_This’ll be a fun night…_

* * *

Jennie woke up with a headache, the kind that made itself known that she’d been drink-binging the whole night, and making more mistakes than she could possibly fix. The kind that drilled into her stupid mind -- pounding and throbbing -- and made her want to escape to somewhere. 

She soaks in the daylight and the breeze that blew in every once and awhile. She runs her fingers against the cold metal of the bench and remembers her little break in character from yesterday, the little note filled with her stupid emotions. She feels for the crumpled paper and pulls it out. _She should’ve thrown this when she had the chance._

She sits there unmoving for a minute. 

_This isn’t mine…_

She unfolds the pink paper. It was thicker than the usual ones she was accustomed to, with fibers that made Jennie think it was torn off of a hardbound book. She looks closer and sees little embossed leaves down where the page number should be. She doesn’t think more of it and instead reads through what’s written.

**_I read through your thoughts, laid bare on that crumpled piece of paper. Don’t ask me how and why I found myself going through park benches and reading through paper confessionals tucked in between the metal, that’s for another conversation it seems._ **

**_Between warm and cold sheets… are scars, painted over…_ **

**_Between warm and cold sheets, Is a bad dream. Every fucking night._ **

**_Again and again, as you wrote -- it repeats._ **

**_Again and again, you find yourself lying until it gets a little bearable?_ ** **_  
_**

**_Tell me, does it help you sleep at night?_ **

**_Helps you get rid of the flowing water?_ **

**_It’ll stop and it’ll leave, when?_ **

**_I don’t know._ **

**_Write to me about it and we’ll figure something..._ **

**_Something to stop the lies and the ugly truths from getting to you every night._ **

**_You see,_ **

**_The only thing scarier than bedtime monsters are the ones inside our head._ **

**_Breathe, count, talk to me_ **

**_Repeat…_ **

**_Talk to me about it and maybe we'll figure something out_ **

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drunken rendezvous' are better, meow. XD  
> Enjoy the day!


	3. Through Mornings right After

Her throat’s dry, like sandpaper, coarse and rough and dry and she hates it. She fucking wonders why she does this every night and why she bothers with it. The drinking. When all it ever does is give her one hell of a headache that goes on and on throughout the day until she can’t take it and drinks again to drown out the pounding. Yeah, how fucking smart of her. She’s a real genius, she wonders why she hasn’t broken out into the world with this realization; drink to get rid of the hangover. Fucking genius. 

She tries to open her eyes this time, glad that she keeps the blinds on the windows always. She figures how much of a sore it would be to have all that light on her. She tries to swallow, even with how dry the insides of her mouth was, anything at this point to get rid of the roughness in her throat that hurts. She tries again to open her eyes and this time she does. Blinking a few times to get the view unblurred. It makes the lights feel more soft, hazy and unclear -- and she hates that. Instinctively closing her eyes back shut, her expression unintelligible, like a crumpled piece of paper. It starts off as a jolt always, catching her off-guard. She stays still for a bit, trying to make sense why everything was black and realizing she has her eyes closed and tries to blink again. This time, hoping the blurriness is no longer there. Her eyes are still but the creases on her forehead look like they're running after a news ticker behind her skull. She's used to it big time. It's been her good morning for as long as she remembers herself. She moves over to her side to get her sight away from the lights on her ceiling where the paint was chipped off and finds herself looking at someone lying on her goddamn floor. 

She breathes in a tight sounding breath, the cold air grating against her throat. 

_ Who the fuck is this? _

She keeps still, unmoving, and watches the slight way the other woman’s chest going up and down as she breathes.  _ Up, down, up, down it goes.  _

Jennie tries and wiggles her toes, all that sleeping in a small, rickety bed makes it hard to ensure she has proper blood flow and every morning her limbs fall asleep whenever she wakes up --  _ how fitting.  _

The cool blankets covered most of her exposed belly, a thin veil to keep the cold from getting to her center but not long and thick enough to cover the majority of her legs and her thighs, shivering as the cold settles in, her room was mostly dark; and that meant an open invitation for the cold to stay as long as it wanted. She shifts again, pulling the blankets up and wrapping her shoulders, not really caring at the amount of skin that’s peeking. 

She keeps thinking why she’s there, lying, on the floor. Like a complete idiot. They always leave the night, not caring to stay in her cramped, bottle-littered room that feels more like a cage than it did a home. But there she was, lying face flat with an empty whiskey bottle kissing her right cheek. 

Jennie finds this rather amusing, a slow smile creeping on her lips. The dim light was hitting the surface of the whiskey bottle and the light brown streaks fell on her naked shoulders. It was kind of nice, Jennie thinks it’s quite flavorful, and she tries to swallow again, getting more and more annoyed at the dryness. 

She sees the other woman stir, and Jennie sits up, throwing the covers behind her in a heap and resting her back against the cold thin walls that shook when anyone walked by. Jennie sees her blink a few times. 

_ Finally.  _

A look of utter confusion on her pretty face as she breathes in long and hard, Jennie thinks this is stupid.  _ She’s breathing in all the dust in that god-awful carpet  _ , but not her problem. Jennie wonders what the first thought she had in mind was when she opened her eyes. She tries to smoothen her dress, a velvet satin nightgown that fell a couple of inches above her knees. She looks at the pile of the blanket, thinking of covering herself with it, but decides not to. She crawls over to the edge of the bed and picks up the untouched bottle of beer and drowns it down to take some of the roughness from her throat. The warm liquid feels nice, making her drink through half the bottle. 

She sees her sigh and knows she’s awake. 

“Ah, sleepyhead. Finally awake!” Her voice comes out rather taut, like a stretched up rubber band waiting to be released from both ends. Hiding the confusion she feels inside and brushing it off quickly, like how her fingers fleet through the piano keys. She’s never had guests stay overnight...

The other woman shoots up, rather unsteadily, feets entangled with one another. Jennie almost chuckles at the sight, she looked like she was dancing … drunkenly. 

“Where the fuck am I?” The other woman’s face was unreadable at this point, most of her face was in a tight looking frown, and her voice was hoarse. 

Jennie wants to laugh out loud, funny how she doesn’t remember either.  _ Good.  _ If she did, Jennie thinks she would’ve bolted the minute she saw the place and her -- in all her glory -- thinking how she looked beneath the dim lights, legs bare and smirking. Thinks about the thoughts running through the other woman's head. 

She puts on a sickenly fake sweet voice and smiles. “My apartment, well… not apartment per se. More like… more like a room, rent-free as long as I sing to tasteless people every night. You see, Ms. I-fell-face-first-on-the-floor, not everyone’s born with a silver spoon right? Mine’s like...not born with even as much as a plastic spoon to begin with, or I’d like to think of it that way…” 

She sees even more confusion deepening into the other woman’s features and sighs.  _ God, why won’t she just pick up her shirt and leave now?  _

“Why am I here.” 

Jennie wanted to roll her eyes at the question.  _ I don't know, why are “you” here ….  _ She wanted to counter, but the building headache inside her languid mind was becoming more prominent and she didn’t have the strength for banter. Not this morning. Not at any morning for that matter. They should leave, in the dead of night, where it’s easier to nurse that hang over alone. 

“Oh.. you don’t remember?” She tries to answer back, to help her -- cause  _ god damn.  _

The other woman looks up at this, Jennie finds quizzical eyes looking straight into her own and she wants to laugh at the thought, again.  _ You won’t find any answers there sweetheart, not now anyway.  _

“Why… am I on your floor? Shouldn’t I be back in that pu--”

“You weigh more than you look, I have more… important things to do in life than carry you around like a … like a….” The thought hits her hard, the recollection of what happened the night before rushes back and she finds herself reeling just a bit, something subtle as she draws in a shaky breath at the way she finds herself taking home people that were easy and the sick cycle she finds herself in every week. 

“More important things… like drinking?” The stranger spits out, not with any animosity but with a settling realization that falls on her as she looks around and finds her gaze fixed on empty bottles everywhere. 

“Yes.. drinking.” What’s there to hide? 

“Unbelievable…”

She bristles at the answer and it takes more than just a deep breath to keep herself from shouting back. Instead she smiles again sweetly and answers. 

“You said the same thing when you were kissing me last night.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Jennie likes the surprised look on her face and revels in what she thinks is a small victory on her part. 

“You’re so… well spoken, I must admit I loved how you threw all those poems every once in a while before--”

She stops, just long enough to allow the stranger to rub her temples and close her eyes in pain.  _ Headaches suck, huh?  _

“What was your name again...” Jennie draws out the sentence, sounding more playful than usual.    
  
“Glad you asked.” The other woman sounded more serious and this made Jennie smile even more. “I am Ms. I-fell-face-first-on-the-floor, nice meeting you.”   
  
She grabs a pillow beside her and throws it at the stranger, not for fun but to shut her up. She was beginning to get on her nerves and the silly looking grin on her face makes it hard for Jennie to be nice. She hits her square on the face and smiles as the stranger grimaces.

“Say, we don’t even know each other’s names...” Jennie answers back thinly, smiling to hide the annoyance. 

The other woman simply looks up with an expression Jennie wants to wipe off of her face, maybe even throw an empty beer bottle at at this point.

“Jennie… Jennie Kim. Professional pub singer. How… What word did you use? How  _ utterly sad. _ ” 

The stranger tries to regain her balance and composure, Jennie hopes she trips and falls flat on her face again. 

“Lisa...Manoban, broke ass writer.” 

Jennie finds Lisa staring, with a smile on her face and finds herself returning the gesture, doing something so uncharacteristic of her right after. 

“Like-minded souls indeed. Say, will you be visiting again tonight?” 

“I ...might. Not even go.”   
  
“Then you’ll stay?”   
  
“I ...might.”

Jennie knows she won't.    
  
“Is that a no?”

“No.”

“Then a yes?”

“A maybe, dear singer, a maybe…” 

“I have… a new song I’d wish to perform and would like to know… what you think.” 

“If you put it that way, how can I decline such a generous offer?”

“Maybe then… the song will cut through the haze of memories and help you remember…”

She gives her a playful smile and Lisa laughs, laughs for the first time in months. 

“Maybe, or you could tell me.”

“Oh, dear writer, where would be the fun in that?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everyone had an amazing start to their weekend? OwO


End file.
